Like all pilot episodes it had strong spots and weak spots.

The weak points first... It was far too dramatic sometimes. Not with the episode plot but with the characters. Some of the actors, Sabrina Lloyd especially, should have been toned down in their performances. There were several scenes with the FBI gang at work which felt far too dramatic with the characters. "Nobody could do this better than you" speeches were just all over the place. We get it. Don is a good agent but his superiors don't always see it. They're trying to portray the lead characters as really great, but they should have been a bit more subtile. They should also have toned down the music in some scenes, it was over the top in a few scenes. Another weak point was the constantly occurring shots of Charlie looking at the sprinkler and then they added some cool effects. Cool the first time, old news by the third time.

As for the strong points... It's an interesting spin on the crime solving genre. It feels fresh and interesting. It's also nice to see an attempt to make math cool... The cast members who weren't overacting were really good, I especially liked David Krumholtz' performance. Judd Hirsch and Navi Rawat had their characters toned down, a huge relief when other actors were over the top, and Peter MacNicol was charmingly quirky without being annoying or out of place. And the episode seemed almost entirely free of Jerry Bruckheimer stuff, which was a breath of fresh air. I don't mind the CSI shows having Jerry Bruckheimer written all over them since they were kind of the pioneers, but far too many shows have copied them and it's getting tiresome. This episode was not yet another "copycat". Aside from the cool effects whenever Charlie saw a water sprinkler, the episode was more similar to early 90s crime shows than the 21st century ones. I found that refreshing.

All pilot episodes have lots of weak spots. It takes a while to define the characters, for the actors to settle in the roles, and for a show to find it's own style. This pilot episode had enough strong spots to keep me interested. I'll definitely be watching more episodes.

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